Every November, Liberty’s beauty advent calendar sells out within hours. Every January, the empty boxes appear on eBay for £40-50. No products inside – just 25 drawers with little brass handles, ready to be refilled or repurposed as storage. Charlotte Tilbury designs hers with jewel-handled drawers and markets it as a jewellery box once December is over.
These aren’t packaging designers getting carried away. They’ve worked out that the box is part of what people are paying for.
The two seconds before they see what’s inside
A launch kit for retail buyer. A gift set for key clients. A product launch that needs to land. In each case, the container shapes how the contents are received.
For Robinsons’ Wicked collaboration, we built a box with doors that parted in the middle – splitting the Wicked logo – as the film’s theme tune played from a built-in speaker. The cordials inside had drinkable glitter that shimmered when you poured. One week from brief to delivery. The boxes landed three weeks before the film opened, and within hours they were being unboxed on TikTok and shared across social media. That’s what good packaging does – it makes people want to show other people.
What forgettable packaging costs you
Nobody remembers brown cardboard. Nobody photographs a plastic mailer. If your product, your gift, or your launch arrives in something generic, you’ve spent money getting it into someone’s hands and then wasted the moment.
The box is either working for you or it isn’t. Most aren’t.
We love projects where the box has a job to do. If you’ve got one coming up, we’d love to hear about it.
